


Once your heart's involved, it all comes out in moron

by Kacka



Series: Oy With the Poodles Already [3]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gilmore Girls Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 16:22:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12461463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kacka/pseuds/Kacka
Summary: Clarke is well-versed in family drama, which is maybe why she's so invested in helping Bellamy with his. It's not that she has a thing for him. Not at all.(Or, the third and final installment in my Gilmore Girls AU)





	Once your heart's involved, it all comes out in moron

**Author's Note:**

> This picks up where the last one left off. Most of what happened previously is pretty self-explanatory, but I'm not going to discourage you from going back and rereading my previous stuff. This will keep.

Clarke never feels smaller than she does when she’s at her mother’s house.

It’s easy to think of it that way, as her mother’s house instead of as her childhood home. As a kid, there had been a list a mile long of things she wasn’t allowed to touch, entire rooms she wasn’t allowed to go in for fear that she would break something valuable.

It’s not like the Blake house, lived-in and comfortable, every inch of it bearing signs of life. The lumpy couch, the scratched floors, the poster she knows is covering a hole in the wall. Magazines (Octavia’s) and books (Bellamy’s) scattered everywhere, mismatched furniture and drawers you have to jiggle just right so that they’ll open.

She loves that house. She’s never even lived there and it feels more like home to her than the one she was raised in.

Each week she has to take a moment, take a breath, steel herself before she goes in. But not too long, lest the ivy-covered facade and pristine walkway serve its intended purpose and intimidate her.

The maid ushers her in, and that makes her feel small too. Even growing up with them, she never liked having a maid. Clarke had too much of Jake in her, who refused to let other people perform simple tasks he could do himself, who was never quite comfortable with the whole high-society thing.

It’s why she’d wanted to live with him when her parents divorced. She loved his life in Ark Grove-- the hardware store he’d opened there, the small apartment he kept upstairs (with an air mattress always blown up in case Clarke wanted to spend the night), the town’s quirks. But Abby had gotten custody, which meant Clarke mostly saw her dad on weekends and holidays. If she ever needed emergency dad time, she would text him and he’d meet her halfway between his place and Abby’s, at this little diner off the interstate.

“Ark Grove needs a place like this,” he’d always say.

When he died, he’d left the store and his place above it to her. Clarke didn’t know heads or tails about hardware, but she knew another way she wanted to honor her dad’s memory.

She’d gone to Abby for the capital she needed, and while her mom hadn’t been happy about her choice of careers, she’d agreed to fund the diner’s renovation on one condition: that Clarke come for dinner every Friday night until the loan was paid off.

Her debt is long since paid, and while she always leaves feeling small and tired and more curmudgeonly than when she entered, her relationship with her mom is better than it has been since before the divorce.

So here Clarke is, and here she will be, every Friday night into perpetuity.

“Hey Clarke,” Marcus says, typing on his iPad in the sitting room like he is every week when Clarke arrives.

She’s not sure if he’s working-- he seems to always be working-- or scrolling through various news sites, but she can understand his desire not to be cooped up in the office. That room is dark and uncomfortable and decorated with a huge portrait of Clarke’s grandmother. Nobody is eager to work with Abby’s mother glaring at them all day, yet Abby doesn’t feel that she can quite part with the painting in good conscience. If anyone was stubborn and spiteful enough to vengeance-haunt their descendants, it would be Gran.

“Hi Marcus.”

“Martini?”

“I can get it,” she assures him. She’s been acquainted with the drinks cart since well before she was of age.

“Just let me wrap up this email and I’ll be sociable, I promise.”

“Take your time.”

Clarke likes Marcus, more because he makes her mother happy than because she has any kind of connection with him. He’s nice enough to Clarke, but he tends to get Abby’s version of most stories, and therefore looks at Clarke the same way her mother does: as an unnecessarily combative child who needs a lot of hands-on guidance from People Who Know Better to prevent her from making poor decisions.

Neither he nor Abby seem to remember that Clarke has never taken well to hands-on guidance, or that she's a full-fledged adult. No training wheels in sight.

By the time she’s back in her seat with her drink, he’s closing the cover on his tablet.

“Done,” he sighs, pushing his glasses up so he can rub at his eyes. “Is it just me, or are people getting stupider?”

“Not just you,” Clarke says with a smile. “I had a customer recently ask me for a diet water.”

“Oh dear.” Marcus shakes his head. “If the past week is any indication, our West Coast office hires only morons. This one man--”

“Who’s a moron?” Abby asks, flawlessly elegant as she descends the stairs.

“Everyone,” Clarke supplies.

“Ah.” She smiles in a way that says she doesn’t understand her daughter, yet somehow makes Clarke feel like it’s her fault. “How has your week been, honey?”

“Oh, you know. The usual. People need to eat. I live to serve.”

Before Abby can come up with a response to that, the maid steps into the room to announce dinner. Luckily, the conversation switches to other topics-- Clarke’s peers from high school who are getting married and/or having children, the specifics of Marcus’s colleagues’ idiocy. The usual.

It isn’t until the end of the meal, after dessert has been served, that Abby says, “We’ve invited Marcus’s mother for Thanksgiving, so if you could avoid discussions of religion this time, that would be very much appreciated.”

Clarke freezes.

“Thanksgiving?””

“Yes,” says Abby, smiling without the expression quite reaching her eyes. “You know, the holiday with all the turkey?”

“I just meant-- you aren’t expecting me for Thanksgiving dinner, are you?”

“Of course we are.” Abby’s smile fades, her face becoming pinched. “Why wouldn’t we?”

“Because it’s on a Thursday,” Clarke says, the pull in her gut warning her that this conversation is veering into argument territory. She ignores that too. “The town is hosting a Thankfulness Festival and I’m helping out.”

“What’s a Thankfulness Festival?” Marcus wonders.

“It’s a big feast in the town square. We’re making huge quantities of food and there will be long tables and forced merriment and everyone dresses up like it’s 1599.”

The kitschy town events as a general rule aren’t Clarke’s cup of tea, but Bellamy and Octavia will be there, so it probably won’t be awful. “I told them I’d help out with the food.”

“Why on earth would you do that?”

“Because Thanksgiving falls on a Thursday, and I’m committed to having dinner with you guys on Fridays,” Clarke says, helpless as she feels her tone sharpen. “And I have industrial ovens.”

“But it’s a family holiday,” Abby insists. “You have to be here.”

“No, I have to be in Ark Grove, roasting six hundred ears of corn,” Clarke insists, not wanting to admit that the weirdos she sees every day are her family too. Abby wouldn’t take that well. “They’re counting on me.”

“Well.” Abby presses her lips together. “If they’re counting on you.”

“What do you want me to say?” Clarke demands. “You’re the one who raised me to honor my obligations. To never quit things.”

“Oh, so this is my fault?”

“No, Mom. That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Well, that’s what I heard. Marcus, isn’t that what you heard?”

“Abby,” Marcus says softly. “Be reasonable--”

Clarke winces as her mother’s face hardens. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it was so _unreasonable_ to expect my only daughter to spend a family holiday with me.” She shakes her head and pushes herself back from the table. “I have a headache. I’m going to bed. Drive safely and we’ll see you next week.”

“Mom--”

“I’ll get the maid to box up your dessert for you.”

Every bone in Clarke’s body feels tired as she heaves herself into her truck. She loves her mother and she knows her mother loves her, but she feels very small indeed.

* * *

Abby enforces her no-phones rule at Friday Night Dinners even more vehemently than Clarke does at her diner (which is no small feat), and Clarke is so flustered with the classic Griffin whammy-- that cocktail of ire, guilt, and petulance only her mom can instill-- that she doesn’t check her texts before she leaves to go back to Ark Grove.

If she had, she would have seen upwards of fifteen missed calls from Bellamy, Lincoln, and Raven, and she would not have been in the least surprised to find the diner’s lights on and blinds drawn when she arrives home. She’d assume Jasper is hosting some weird get-rich-quick thing, except that she sees Bellamy’s car parked out front in her usual spot.

Were it anyone else, she’d have them towed. But if Bellamy drove to town this late at night and broke into her store, something is probably wrong.

She barely gets her key in the lock before the door is swinging open, the cheerful chime of the bell at odds with the look on Bellamy’s face. His expression falls further when he sees it’s Clarke, but then he grabs her arm and pulls her inside, quickly shutting the door behind her.

“What’s your damage, Heather?”

“Octavia ran away.”

And just like that, the Griffin whammy dissipates, replaced instantly with a knot of concern. Bellamy sinks onto a pulled-out stool by the counter and rakes a hand through his hair anxiously. It’s more mussed than usual, which means he’s been pulling this move for hours. Lincoln is behind the counter, brewing coffee with his face serious and every muscle tensed. Raven is sitting _on_  the counter-- something for which Clarke will be sure to reprimand her later-- and is hunched over a laptop.

Even though it’s the last thing that should be on Clarke’s mind right now, she notes with relief that it doesn’t even hurt to look at Raven. It was only yesterday that she realized Finn was two-timing them, and Raven probably doesn’t even _know_ yet, but she’s far less hurt than she thinks she ought to be. Most of what she’s feeling is embarrassment and anger at Finn for making a fool of her. It’s probably a sign she shouldn’t have been in the relationship in the first place.

“How long has she been gone? Where did we last see her? What are we all doing _here_?” She asks, dumping her bag behind the counter and grabbing a spare flannel shirt to put on over her fancy dress.

“Lincoln saw her around three fifteen at the college.”

Clarke glances at him and he nods. “She wanted me to go with her. I told her I couldn’t. She stormed off. I figured she would go home, but-- apparently not.”

“I’ve got Monty and Miller driving around town looking and asking casual questions,” Bellamy says, his voice tight. Clarke nudges Lincoln away from the coffee maker and grabs the biggest mug she has. It’s basically a soup bowl, and Bellamy is pretty much the only one who ever uses it.

“I’m surprised you’re not out there with them,” Clarke says to Bellamy.

On the one hand, having Bellamy out on the streets, frantic and frazzled, would get around their busybody town faster than Old Ms. Wilson’s chlamydia. On the other hand, it’s hard to believe he’s fine with just sitting here, hiding out, when he could be actively looking for his sister.

He just shrugs.

“Raven is helping me hack her phone. She needed me here to answer questions.”

“Okay, for the last time-- logging legally onto software you downloaded on her phone is not the same as hacking.”

Clarke snorts. “You needed him for what, passwords?”

“Those I could have hacked, but it’s faster if he tells them to me himself,” Raven says, flashing her a smile. “Besides, the diner is pretty central. If she’s on the move, he doesn’t want to be on the other side of Ark Grove.”

“Because that’s so far away,” Bellamy grumbles. Clarke slides him the coffee and physically wraps his hands around it. He curls over it like a child with a security blanket, making something twist in her gut.

“Did we make a list of places she might go?”

“We’ve checked with Harper, at the school, the bus station. It’s Ark Grove. There aren’t that many places _to_ go.”

“You should email her professor,” Lincoln says, a gravity to his quietness that makes even Raven look up. “She and her daughter open their house to students who need a place to go study, to kill time, even to spend the night sometimes.”

“You think O would go there?” Bellamy says, as Raven’s fingers fly across the keys.

“She admires Professor Birch very much. Doesn’t know her daughter as well, but I’ve met Gaia once or twice and I don’t think she’d turn Octavia away.”

“I’ve got her email here,” Raven says, turning the computer to him. “It’s not much but it’s worth a shot.”

“Can someone else just do it? I’m not sure I can string together words right now,” Bellamy sighs, taking a long drink from his coffee and swiping a hand over his face.

“I’ve got it,” Clarke says quietly, coming around the counter and tapping out a quick message. She can feel Bellamy reading with bleary eyes over her shoulder but if he’s surprised when she can type out his phone number without the aid of her contacts list, he doesn’t show it. “Good?” She murmurs, turning to him. He nods and downs the rest of the mug in one impressive swallow.

“Refill?”

“I’m on it,” Lincoln says. They all just want to feel like they can help and don’t know how.

“You’re not even going to give me a lecture about my caffeine intake after two p.m.?” Bellamy mumbles to Clarke. She shrugs one shoulder and picks at a spot of dried food on the counter.

“In the past forty-eight hours, your inn burned down, you bailed me out of jail, and now your sister is missing. I’m giving you a pass on this one.”

“What the hell were you doing in jail?” Raven asks with interest.

Clarke swallows. “Long story, but-- make sure I tell it to you later.”

There must be something weird happening on her face because Raven’s amused curiosity dims a little.

Just then Bellamy’s phone trills, because he’s eighty years old and has no idea how to turn the ringer off.

“You going to tell me to take it outside?”

“It’s forty degrees out. Why do you keep trying to make me be an asshole to you? Would it make you feel better?”

“It might,” he says simply, before answering the call and stepping over to the corner.

Clarke looks over at Raven, then at Lincoln.

“You told her no?”

Lincoln shrugs. “You can’t run from your problems forever. And-- I don’t think Bellamy was as unreasonable as Octavia thought he was being.”

“You guys messed up,” Clarke says evenly. She’s not his mom, not even any kind of authority figure. She’s just a friend who happens to have an empty pull-out couch. But she’d tell any friend when she thought they were in the wrong. She told Bellamy he was, just earlier today.

Lincoln nods. “We didn’t mean to fall asleep, but-- we probably shouldn’t have put ourselves in the position to fall asleep in the first place.”

“Wow,” says Raven. “You guys have a lot to fill me in on later.”

“You can’t be serious.” Bellamy’s voice rises above their low chatter all at once, the desperation taken out of it but anger filling the gaps quickly. “I’m her guardian. She’s my responsibility.”

There’s silence in the diner as he listens.

“I don’t give a--” He pauses, the voice on the other end becoming slightly audible as whoever it is raises their voice right back. “No. She can’t just decide not to come home.”

Clarke takes stock of him while he’s distracted, arguing with whoever is on the other end of the line. Usually his broad frame and messy curls are a comfort to her. In a town full of people who are quirky, unpredictable, and often annoying, he’s usually so solid. The one she depends on. Now his shoulders are tense, his hair a wreck, his face haggard.

She’s helped him through Octavia-related crises before-- that phase when she’d eat nothing but mac n’ cheese, the time in middle school when she and some of her friends toilet-papered Jaha’s house and she was the only one who got caught-- but never one of this magnitude. She hopes she’s up to the challenge, because somebody needs to be there for him and she suspects it’s going to be her. She wants it to be her.

After a long while, Bellamy gives a quiet sigh and mutters, “No,” less like a rejection and more like an answer this time. He sinks down into a chair by the door and rests his head in his hands. He sounds defeated when he pleads, “Can you tell her at least to text me? Let me know she’s safe?”

Clarke exchanges looks with Raven and Lincoln.

“I’ll go tell Monty and Miller they can call off the search,” Raven says quietly, packing up her things and slipping out the front door without even disturbing the bell.

“I’ll give you guys some space,” Lincoln murmurs to Clarke. “I’ll be upstairs if you need anything.”

“Thanks.”

Clarke tries not to listen in on Bellamy’s end of the call as he wraps it up, focusing instead on wiping down the counter and chairs they’d used, cleaning out the coffee pot, marking down what they’d used on her inventory sheet.

“I’ll be there at nine to pick her up,” says Bellamy at long last. “I don’t give a damn. It’s non-negotiable. Okay. Okay, bye.”

Clarke pretends she wasn’t watching him out of the corner of her eye as he rubs his hands over his eyes, digging in with the heel of his hand until she’s sure he’s seeing spots. She finishes tidying up, doing any and every little task she would normally put off as she gives him space to collect himself.

“You found her?” Clarke asks at last.

Bellamy makes a distressed noise. “Her professor told me I should let her stay there for the night. And she’s _right_. O would be even more pissed if I came and pulled her out. We both need to cool off. But--”

“But she’s your sister and you’ve been going out of your mind.”

“Yeah.”

Clarke rests a hand on his shoulder and he rests his head on it, leeching all the comfort he can. She knows it can’t be doing all that much but she’d stand here as long as he let her, offering as much as she thinks he’d accept.

“I should probably get going,” he says tiredly after a while, pushing himself to his feet with Herculean effort. “Thanks for the coffee.”

“It’s what I do.”

He nods and lingers for a moment before nodding to himself and heading for the door. With one hand on the knob he pauses, starts to turn back but doesn’t quite make it because Clarke is following him out.

“Where are you going?” He asks with a frown. Clarke nudges him out, locking the door behind them.

“I’m taking you home.”

“I have my car.”

“And you’ve also barely slept in the past seventy-two hours. Make peace with the idea that I’m taking you home, because I’m not taking no for an answer.”

Bellamy opens his mouth to protest again but Clarke effectively shuts him up when she reaches into his left pocket and steals his keys, climbing into the driver’s seat of his car without a backward glance. As she gets it started, he climbs into the passenger side and glares halfheartedly at her.

“You’re stealing my car, you know. I could tell Jaha on you.”

Clarke snorts. “Remember that PowerPoint presentation he gave about distracted driving? There was an entire slide about sleepiness. He’d totally take my side.”

Bellamy huffs but falls silent, brooding inside his own head on the short drive back to his place. She parks under his favorite tree, since the garage is full of Harper’s drums and the boat Clarke’s dad was trying to restore before he died. It’s late enough in a small enough town that the cicadas and the cloak of darkness would be peaceful if it weren’t for the distress radiating from him.

She meets him by the foot of his stairs, holding out the keys and rubbing her arm to try to generate some warmth. Her flannel isn’t nearly warm enough for November in Connecticut.

“Now what are you doing?” He asks, taking the keys with a confused look.

“Going home? It’s not that long a walk--”

“No way am I letting you walk back by yourself at this time of night. You can take my bed. I don’t mind the couch.”

“I mind you taking the couch,” she snaps, crossing her arms. “You’re the one who needs the sleep.”

“I probably won’t sleep that well anyway,” he sighs. Clarke deflates.

“She’ll come around. I know she will. She just needs a little time to clear her head.”

Bellamy is quiet. “I thought about running away from Mom once,” he admits softly. “When I was about her age. But-- she was only… not even two years old? I couldn’t leave her like that.”

Clarke bites her lip and steps toward him, winding her arms around his waist, linking her hands behind his back. His arms come around her slowly, sinking into her like he can’t manage to hold himself up anymore. She lets herself bask in his warmth even as there’s an ache in her bones for what he’s going through. Knowing he thinks he deserves to be treated this way.

She wants to tell him that it’s not his fault, that it’s Octavia’s disproportionate reaction to a reasonable, if not well-handled, boundary that Bellamy had set for her. But she doesn’t know how to find those words so she just holds onto him and hopes he understands anyway.

“You’re cold,” he says after a moment, but he doesn’t loosen his grip.

“I’m fine,” she murmurs, burying her frozen nose in his shoulder.

“Well, I’m cold.” He lets her go. “Come inside, please. I don’t need one more thing to worry about tonight.”

“Okay,” Clarke agrees. “But I’m taking the couch.”

* * *

Clarke doesn’t see Bellamy the next day. He’s still asleep-- or still in his room with the door closed-- when she leaves at the crack of dawn to open the diner, and then between his burned-down inn and his runaway sister, she figures he’s got his hands pretty full. All the same, she finds herself keeping one eye on the door all day in hopes that he’ll show up.

She just wants to make sure he’s feeding himself. Really. If she knew that, she’d probably feel better.

He doesn’t show the next day either. She texts him that it’s donut day at the diner, which typically has both Blakes rolling up within five minutes, but he just says they’re probably going to have to skip this one, and when she asks if they’re doing okay, he texts back, Okay is a pretty strong word, but today is better than it was yesterday, and leaves it at that.

It’s two days after that when she finally sees a Blake again, and while it’s not her preferred Blake, for all she’s mad at Octavia, she’s been pretty worried about her too.

She arrives at the diner before school, possibly earlier than Clarke has ever seen her, and asks for coffee in a subdued tone.

“Welcome back,” Clarke says mildly, as if Octavia had been on vacation instead of running away from home.

On the one hand, Clarke can sympathize. She ran away from her mom’s house plenty of times as a teenager, usually to her dad’s or her girlfriend’s, or one time to a Boyz II Men concert.

On the other hand, she’s never seen Bellamy so frantic. It’s impossible for her to feel like Octavia was doing the right thing.

Octavia scowls at her. “You can skip the lecture. I’ve gotten it every way it can be given, I assure you.”

“I believe it,” Clarke says, sliding her a mug of coffee and stepping back to start prepping a sausage biscuit. “You want to talk about it?”

“Are you just going to tell Bellamy everything I say?”

“Nope. Customer confidentiality, promise.”

Octavia gives her a skeptical look, then sighs. “You hate your mom, right?”

The tug on Clarke’s heart is not so much unexpected as it is painful. She’s still raw from their argument the other night. She tried to call Abby yesterday, but her phone went straight to voicemail. Which, granted, could have meant she was in surgery or otherwise occupied, but Clarke normally would’ve gotten a call back by now.

“I don’t hate her.”

“But you have complicated family dynamics.”

“Sure.” Clarke looks around at the empty diner, then sets her dishrag down, pouring herself a cup of coffee. She can take a quick break. This is important too. “You want to talk about your mom?”

Octavia shrugs one shoulder. “Not really. It’s mostly Bell. He’s so-- unreasonable and controlling. And the way he went off on Lincoln? That wasn’t okay.”

“He was worried about you,” Clarke says, shooting for an understanding tone even though she wasn’t a huge fan of the way Bellamy handled the situation either. Octavia rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, well he’s the adult.” Her glare could melt steel. “He’s supposed to be able to keep his temper in check. Besides, I know he used to sneak out to see girls at all hours of the night when he was my age, so it feels pretty hypocritical.”

Clarke sighs. “It’s not about who you were with that night, I don’t think. Not really. It’s that he didn’t know where you really were. If something had gone wrong-- If you’d gotten hurt--”

Octavia’s chin juts out, defiant.

“It’s Ark Grove. I was fine, and I told him nothing happened!”

And there it is. There’s the real issue. That Octavia feels she’s lost Bellamy’s trust.

“This time,” Clarke says, crossing her arms. “For all he knew, you could’ve been kidnapped or in an accident, or abducted by aliens and he still would have thought you were safe at Harper’s. He’s not scared of anything half as much as he’s scared of something bad happening to you on his watch.”

Octavia scowls into her coffee like it has all the answers. Seeing as Bellamy raised her, she might actually believe that.

“Give him some time,” Clarke urges in a low voice. She can tell Octavia is shutting down. It won’t do either of them any good to keep pushing her now. “And try to think about it from his perspective. You aren’t exactly blameless here.”

“I should’ve known you’d take his side.”

“If it helps, I’ll try to talk some sense into him too.”

Just then, Clarke hears familiar footsteps on the stairs. Octavia continues to stare resolutely at the mug in her hands, pointed in avoiding eye contact with Lincoln when he comes around the corner. He spots her immediately, his eyes running over her like he’s checking that she’s all there, that she made it home in one piece.

Before he can say anything, Octavia pushes off the stool and slings her coat over her shoulders.

“I gotta go,” she mutters, busying herself with her scarf. “I want to get a good seat on the bus.”

And then she’s out the door, hands stuffed into her pockets, shoulders hunched not against the cold but against Lincoln’s eyes on her retreating figure. Clarke is still watching him, still trying to figure out what to say when he finally tears his gaze away.

“I’ll be back in time for the dinner shift,” Lincoln says, false easiness in his voice, and then he’s gone too.

It isn’t a whole hour after Octavia leaves that Bellamy shows up, sliding unknowingly onto the same stool his sister had occupied and ordering a coffee in the same downcast manner. Clarke bites back a smile at how alike they are.

The Blakes are all heart, the way they love each other so fiercely, the way they throw themselves headfirst into everything they do, the way they revel in joy so completely; it’s no surprise their anger burns hotter than others, leaving deeper hurt when the flame flickers out.

“Rough morning?”

“I know you already talked to my sister,” he says, running a hand through his hair. She wants to nudge it away, to smooth the wild tangles gently. She keeps her hands to herself.

It’s been months since something almost happened between them in his kitchen. Months in which she was with Finn, so she guesses she can understand why he never brought it up. But he’d told her to go with Finn, the night of Founders Day. Surely if he were interested, he would have said something then.

Still, it’s getting tiresome to tiptoe around the elephant in the room.

“The bloodshot eyes would’ve tipped me off,” she says, her tone light. His glare, tempered marginally by his glasses, is toothless. He’s all bark and no bite, at least where Clarke is concerned. “Wanna talk about it?”

“You clearly do.” He sighs and chugs half his coffee in one sip. “Let me get through two cups first, then I’ll talk.”

“Never become a spy. All they’d have to do to crack you is withhold coffee.”

“But I look so good in black.”

“So say we all.”

All three of her other customers are taken care of for the moment so she steps into the kitchen to fry herself an egg.

After she plates it and gives Bellamy his refill, she leans a hip against the counter and waits. She’s a pro at handling Blakes.

Well, except for when they’re trying to kiss her one minute and never acknowledging it the next. She’s not as sure what to do about that.

As expected, it’s not long before he cracks.

“I fell asleep,” he admits softly. “The night she ran. I would have-- should have-- noticed hours before I did. Right away. But I was so tired... I had no idea she didn’t come home until Lincoln knocked.”

He sounds so wrecked Clarke wants to take his hand. She stuffs her hands in her apron instead.

“If something had happened to her--”

“Nothing happened to her.”

“But if something had, I wouldn’t have known. I’d probably still be asleep on the couch right now. I’m supposed to be responsible for her.”

“Sounds like you should have grounded yourself, then. If Octavia isn’t responsible for her own actions.”

The look Bellamy gives her is the epitome of unimpressed.

“She’s a teenage girl, she’s going to do stupid stuff,” Clarke says, less sarcasm and more gentleness this time. “But she’s also capable and smart and determined. I’m not saying nothing bad is ever going to happen to her, but you’ve got to learn to trust her to make her own decisions.” She pauses. “And you’ve got to trust yourself, too. You did good raising her, Bellamy.”

“I know.” He sighs and rubs at his eyes tiredly. “I mean, I guess I know. I just freaked.”

“I’m shocked. That’s so unlike you, the champion worrier.”

“Shut up.” His mood has lifted slightly since he came in, which Clarke counts a win. “I took her back to Mecha. We spent a few nights in a hotel there, drove by the house I grew up in, went to a movie at the discount theater we used to go to all the time. I don’t know why I thought that would help. She still doesn’t want to listen, or admit that she might have been at fault in any way, shape or form.”

“But you did talk about what happened.”

“I tried.”

“How long is she grounded for?”

“Until the Thankfulness Festival.”

Clarke shrugs, refilling his coffee without being asked. It’s his third cup of the day, which she’d normally give him hell about, but if ever there were a morning he needed it, she thinks it’d be today.

“Let her come to you,” she advises. “Right now you’re both mad at you, which doesn’t feel fair. Give yourself a break, let her cool down, and reopen the subject when you both have clearer heads about who is responsible here.”

Bellamy heaves a sigh. “This parenting thing was so much easier when all I had to worry about was picky eating and refusing to go to bed on time.”

“For what it’s worth, I think you’re doing a good job.”

He gives her a weak smile. “Thanks, Clarke.”

“Of course.” A customer on the other side of the diner flags her down and she nods. “Anytime you need to hear it. I mean that, Bellamy.”

They don’t get much of a chance to chat before he has to leave for the inn, but every time she looks over at him his shoulders look a little looser, and it relieves a little bit of the tension in her chest.

* * *

The next week and a half has her on edge. Part of it is Finn’s multitude of phone calls each day, despite the fact that Clarke has never once answered. She’d finally gotten a chance to break the news to Raven, who broke up with Finn basically immediately, and though that conversation went well, it was also very tense.

Another source of stress is Octavia’s continuing cold shoulder. When she’s distant, it makes Bellamy lonely, and when Bellamy is lonely he seeks Clarke out. Which is really something she thinks they need to talk about.

But largely, she’s stressed because of the pervading radio silence from her mother.

“What are you still doing here?” Bellamy asks Friday afternoon, making Clarke pause where she’s angrily wiping down the counter. “I thought Friday was your night off.”

“Yeah, obviously not,” she snaps. His eyebrows shoot up and he pushes his glasses up on his face so he can take a better look at her expression.

“Don’t take this the wrong way but you seem a little-- tense. You look like you could use the night off.”

She sighs. “I got an email from my stepfather this morning canceling dinner tonight. He says it’s because they’re having the drive repaved but really he’s just covering for my mother. We fought last week and she’s icing me out.”

“You let me bother you with my family drama all week and withheld your own?” He asks, indignant.

“I’m a Griffin. We bottle our emotions up to maximize the damage when they explode.”

Bellamy eyes her shrewdly, then seems to come to a decision.

“You’re still taking the night off,” he announces. “Sterling is still coming in to cover for you, right? And it’s not like O wants me around anyway. So we’ll go do something fun.”

“Like what?” Clarke asks, begrudgingly curious.

Bellamy knows he’s got her and he grins. It prods at something in Clarke’s chest. 

“Well, we could drive out to Polis and do something actually fun, or we could stay here and do one of those quirky town things you love to heckle.”

Clarke bites her lip. “I am in a heckling mood.”

His smile broadens. “Then I know just the thing.”

As it turns out, Jasper’s latest entrepreneurial endeavor is a drive-in movie theater. It’s little more than a projector on the side of the church, the only structure in town with its own parking lot. The movie, Hairspray, despite being made in 2007, is in black and white because Jasper couldn’t get the projector settings out of grayscale.

“He makes himself such an easy target,” Clarke says, offering Bellamy the bag of fries. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

“He could have spun it as an artistic statement,” Bellamy hums, taking a sip of his milkshake. “Like-- the whole theme of the movie is about racial segregation. I’m sure there’s a statement in there somewhere, playing it in black and white. You’re the artist, what do you think?”

“I think it’s a little weird to have the drive-in theater at the church.”

“It’s a classic activity, Clarke.”

“A classic way for people to get in their date’s pants,” she amends. “Maybe Jaha thought the stained-glass Jesus looking down would keep people from getting too inappropriate. That’s the only reason I can think of for him okaying this.”

“I don’t presume to understand the inner workings of Jaha’s mind.” Bellamy’s voice sounds weird and when Clarke looks over at him, she can tell he’s blushing.

It strikes her that this setup is very date-like. That it wouldn’t take much for her to reach across the console for his hand. That she’d like very much to climb into his lap and finish what they started in his kitchen on Octavia’s birthday, stained-glass Jesus or no stained-glass Jesus.

Before she can figure out what to say to make that happen, he speaks again.

“I bet Jasper set this whole thing up for Maya.”

“Maya?” Clarke frowns. “Maya, who teaches at the middle school?”

“One and the same,” he nods. “Jasper has been in the inn’s dining room every day this week, rehearsing a dinner date with her. He set up a video camera and everything so he can give himself notes. It’s mildly alarming some of my guests.”

“I can understand why,” Clarke murmurs, disappointed that he let the moment pass. It seemed like a deliberate shutting down of the subject. She doesn’t have a clue how to broach it now. “Most outsiders aren’t used to our level of weird.”

“You’re telling me,” he snorts, shaking his head. “He kept trying to convince Miller to make a specific dish so he could practice eating it without spilling on himself.”

“I bet Miller loved that.”

“It was entertaining as hell for me,” he smirks. “Eventually I recommended that if he was so nervous about dinner and conversation, maybe he should try something with a little less pressure.”

“Like a movie.”

“Precisely.” He looks up at the giant projector, which has somehow turned upside down, and smiles fondly. “But you know Jasper: he goes big or he goes home.”

“Good for him for going after what he wants.” Clarke bites violently into a Red Vine. She wishes she were that brave. She usually is, when there’s less at stake than the friendship she’s built with Bellamy.

He’s her person. The one she knows will be there for her when she needs something, the one who gives her his honest opinion no matter what, the one who makes her determined to be the best version of herself. He’s the most solid person in her life and she always feels at ease around him.

Or she did. Now he makes her more nervous than anyone else ever has.

Keeping quiet is definitely not the best course of action here, but bottling things up is how she operates. She’s a Griffin, after all. She just hopes that when it finally bursts out of her, their friendship doesn’t become a casualty.

* * *

Lincoln is on the couch when she gets back, a mug of tea in his hands and _Luke Cage_ on the TV. He offers Clarke a smile that she returns, flopping into the armchair in a comfortable silence until the episode ends.

“You’re in a suspiciously good mood,” he says, pausing the screen as the next episode begins. “And not dressed up.”

Clarke hums. “My mom canceled dinner, so I went to a movie instead.”

“The one Jasper set up?”

“Yeah.”

“How was it?”

Clarke smiles. The movie itself had been sort of a disaster, the sound cutting off for the second half of it and the crowd, growing increasingly annoyed with the malfunctions, throwing concessions at the screen. Which was, of course, the church. Jaha had not been happy.

Somehow she’d had a great time anyways. She and Bellamy made up their own dialogue and heckled the hecklers and generally made their own fun out of it, which was even better than if the movie had gone off without a hitch.

But it’s a night she wants to keep private, to keep for herself, so she just says, “It was fun,” and leaves it at that.

Lincoln traces the rim of his mug and turns thoughtful.

“Have you seen the Blakes lately?”

“Some,” she hedges. “Octavia hasn’t tried to get in touch with you?”

“No. I think she’s still pretty upset.”

Lincoln is so physically huge and mature for his age that Clarke sometimes forgets he’s only nineteen. That she has a decade more experience with life than he does. Then again, she isn’t doing any better with her own love life than he is with his, so experience might not be worth that much.

“She’s a champion grudge-holder,” Clarke agrees. “But-- and I say this knowing how patronizing it sounds-- I’m really proud of you.”

Lincoln clears his throat, uncomfortable. “Let’s talk about something else.”

“I mean it. Everybody messes up, but you acknowledged what you did and then tried to do better. That’s all you can do, you know?” He turns red and she grins. “You can either accept my praise and move on or we can keep having this awkward conversation. The power is yours.”

He rolls his eyes but he’s smiling slightly. “Thank you, Clarke. Can we _please_ change the subject?”

“Sure.” She settles deeper into the chair. “One more episode?”

“Sounds good to me.”

* * *

“We’re closed,” Clarke snaps when she hears the bell jingle. The door had been locked all morning until Monty came by to drop off the next bushel of corn, and she must not have locked it behind him. The bell doesn’t sound again, meaning whoever came in hasn’t left, and she emerges from the kitchen scowling. “I said--”

“You’re closed, we get it,” Miller mutters, not stopping where he’s unpacking a stack of Tupperware from a bag with the Inn’s logo on it. Bellamy is standing next to him, plating the assortment of food. He looks up and gives her a smile.

“Sorry to barge in. Just thought with all the corn you’re roasting you might not have thought to fix yourself any lunch.”

Clarke huffs and goes over to lock the door behind them. Just because she likes these intruders doesn’t mean she wants to invite any more who might see them and think the diner is open.

“I’m a big girl. I can fix my own lunch.”

“Yeah, but did you?” Bellamy asks pointedly. Clarke rolls her eyes.

“Fine. Miller, what have you got?”

The three of them settle at one of the bigger tables, a miniature feast spread before them. Miller, as usual, went way overboard. Not that Clarke is really complaining. If ever there were a day for eating way too much, it would be Thanksgiving.

“You realize there are only three of us here, right?” She teases, torn between starting with the chicken or the mashed potatoes. “And that we’re all going to stuff our faces at the festival tonight?”

“What’s your point.”

“My point is that you guys better eat your share of the corn later because I don’t want any leftovers. In fact, I hope I never have to see another ear of corn ever again.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll do our part,” says Bellamy. “It smells amazing.”

Clarke hums, slightly mollified. “It’s been insane. I’m done with town events from now on. This festival fulfills my quota for life.”

“So you won’t be making hot chocolate for the carolers this year?” Bellamy teases, nudging her under the table.

“Or towing a float in the Christmas parade?”

She points her fork at Miller menacingly. He smirks. “Not after what happened last year. And I swear, if you tell Jaha I will again--”

“He needed someone with a trailer hitch,” Miller says innocently.

“I will sign you up to scoop reindeer shit. Don’t think I won’t.”

“You talk to your mom yet?”

Clarke throws another scowl Bellamy’s way but he seems unperturbed, shoveling sweet potato into his mouth as he quirks an eyebrow at her.

“No. But not for lack of trying on my part.”

His expression softens, turns understanding, and he’s opening his mouth to speak when Miller interrupts.

“If you give her some speech about how we can be her family today I am literally going to vomit on you both.”

Clarke grins. “Sounds like someone’s caught the holiday spirit,” she teases, spearing one of his broccoli with her fork. “Maybe I’ll sign you up to be one of Santa’s elves instead.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“I don’t know,” says Bellamy mildly. “I think you’d look pretty cute in those striped tights.”

“And the shoes with the bells on them?”

“Yeah, you gotta have those.”

“I hate you both.”

By some miracle, Clarke does get the six-hundred-plus ears roasted before the festival begins. Lincoln helps her cart them over to the warming tins on the self-serve line set up in the square, and by the time they get the last load out, Clarke has sweated through her flannel.

She swaps out her standard uniform for a slightly dressier version-- exchanging her baseball cap for a beanie that will keep her ears warm, layering on her thickest socks and a cable-knit sweater under her pea coat. She’s sure that many of the ridiculous residents of her town are dressed as pilgrims, but she doubts anyone is under the illusion that she will partake in that part of the festival.

By the time she’s bundled up and ready to gorge herself, she’s almost running late. So focused is she on getting out the door and getting it locked behind her that she almost runs smack into the person standing on the other side.

“Clarke.”

“Mom.” She blinks, hardly believing her eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“Your… male friend called Marcus a few hours ago. Invited us to the festival.”

“And you came?” She asks dumbly. There’s no question who her ‘male friend’ is, but she’s still caught so off guard that her mother is actually _here_ , in Ark Grove. It’s worlds colliding.

“I wanted to spend Thanksgiving with my daughter.” She smiles. “It was unfair of me to expect you to give up your plans when I wouldn’t even consider giving up mine.”

“And Vera ran you off a little, didn’t she?” Clarke asks, giving her a timid smile. Abby laughs.

“I’m sure we’ll spend plenty of time together, come Christmas. Besides, she didn’t seem to mind a dinner just with Marcus. So--” She shrugs, and for the first time Clarke realizes that her mother probably feels just as out of her element here as Clarke does in her childhood home. “I’m all yours.”

“You say that now, but as soon as everyone finds out you’re my mom they’re going to descend like vultures.”

Abby straightens her shoulders, a Griffin through and through. “Bring it on.”

Clarke wasn’t wrong about the townspeople coming after Abby. Luckily, the first person they stumble upon is Raven, who has met her before and is way more normal than most of the other festival attendees. The three of them fill up their plates, then find a long family-style table they can squeeze onto the end of together.

Raven and Abby are deep in conversation when someone bumps Clarke’s elbow, sliding in beside her.

“This seat taken?” Bellamy asks, low in her ear so as not to interrupt. She jumps and wrinkles her nose at him.

“I have a bone to pick with you.”

He ducks his head on a smile, aiming it at his plate rather than at her. Which is a shame.

“I’d apologize for calling your mom, but-- I’m not really sorry. It looks like it worked out for you.”

“But it could have backfired.”

“But it didn’t.” He’s still too smug for Clarke’s liking so she just makes a miffed noise and looks around for Octavia, finding her settling in beside Lincoln, both of them staring somewhat shyly down at their food.

“Looks like they’re patching things up.”

Bellamy follows her gaze. “Yeah. I’m still not wild about the age difference, but I’d rather she not feel like she has to hide this stuff from me.”

The jumping muscle in his jaw catches Clarke’s gaze and she finds herself transfixed, studying the tendons in his neck and the crook of his lips as he watches his sister enjoying herself.

“And you guys are okay?” She presses.

“Yeah.” He turns to her, surprise flitting across his face when he sees that she’s already looking at him. “We’re getting there.”

The pull of his gaze is too strong; Clarke can’t look away. Her train of thought gets completely derailed somewhere between her brain and her mouth, and even with her mother sitting _right there_ , probably watching her out of the corner of her eye, she doesn’t know if she can stand to sit there and not kiss him for much longer.

Just as she thinks he might be leaning toward her…

“Clarke?”

Bellamy’s eyes close, frustration written plainly across his face. Clarke purses her lips, turning to aim her iciest expression at the unwelcome interruption.

“What do you want, Finn.”

“I want to talk to you.” He studiously does not look at Bellamy, nor at Raven, though her conversation with Abby has gone uncomfortably silent.

“As you can see, I’m already talking to someone, so--”

“No,” Bellamy says, standing so suddenly he almost knocks his plate over. “Don’t mind me. I’ll just-- go find Miller.”

“Bellamy--”

“It’s fine, Clarke. I’ll leave you two alone.”

As she watches him storm off, his shoulders hunched around his ears, Finn wastes no time in sliding onto the recently vacated spot on the bench, staring at Clarke with forlorn eyes.

“I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Clarke, I’m _sorry_.”

“I’m sure you are. But that really only makes you feel better, not me, and not Raven. Are we done here?”

“I--”

“Great.” She stands, huffing in frustration. “Stop calling me.”

Raven gives her a nod as she passes, not smiling but with a sort of grim, cathartic look on her face. Abby has one eyebrow arched, elegant as ever, but she makes no move to follow Clarke, instead saying something to Raven that leaves Finn completely ignored once more.

She finds Bellamy pacing the gazebo, jaw tic going again, and annoyance stirs in her gut. If anyone gets to be put out here, it’s her. He doesn’t get to take her thing.

“Hey!” His head snaps up and he glares at her. “What’s going on with you, you big baby?”

“Nothing, Clarke. Forget it.”

“I will _not_.” She storms up the steps, crossing her arms. He crosses his back at her. “Not until you tell me what your problem is.”

“ _My_ problem?” He drops his arms, jaw dropping with incredulity. “What’s _your_ problem? Have you forgotten what he did to you and Raven?”

“Of course I haven’t forgotten,” she snaps. “If you had stuck around, you would have heard me tell him that I’m not giving him a second chance. I’m--” She makes an irritated noise. “I don’t know what you want from me, Bellamy. I thought we had a moment at Octavia’s birthday party--”

“We did,” he says, sounding distressed. It takes some of the edge off her anger. “There _was_ a moment.”

“And then you told me to go off with Finn on Founder’s Day--”

“I know,” he sighs. “That was--”

“And then everything happened-- the fire, the arrest, Octavia, and you helped me fix things with my mom, and through it all, I just keep thinking, why did I ever date Finn in the first place, when I knew, at the end of the day, I wanted it to be _you!_ ”

She finishes louder than she meant to, chest heaving with the effort of all that yelling, as Bellamy stares at her with wide eyes. Before she can ramp herself up again, he takes a step toward her.

To her own utter surprise, she takes a reflexive step back.

“What now?”

“Can we just, for once, not make this so difficult?” He mutters, and this time when he moves to close the gap between them Clarke doesn’t move away. His hands wrap around her waist, pulling her to him. She meets him halfway for the kiss, and it’s like everything else fades away.

Her head spins with relief, with the _rightness_ of finally kissing Bellamy Blake, her hands clutching tight to the lapels of his coat so she doesn’t keel over if she faints. They’re both a little worked up still, their chapped, cold lips no match at all for the heat they pour into the kiss, the underlying passion. It’s a kiss worth waiting for, Clarke thinks as he pulls back to look at her. Though she wishes it had come a hell of a lot sooner than it did.

“It’s about time,” she breathes, tugging at his coat until he kisses her again. It goes on for longer this time, neither of them paying any mind that just across the street sits everyone they know, probably watching, definitely gossiping about them. Clarke really can’t be bothered by that right now. Not when kissing Bellamy is so good.

She lets herself kiss him until her growling stomach protests, then leads him back to the table, hand in hand, so they can rejoin their friends and family.

Over the days and weeks to come, she’ll come to regret the public manner in which they got together. The speculation about whether their dating will impact the town, the people who will want to hang around her diner (without ordering anything) just to watch them together at last. The talking-to she gets from Octavia.

But as quirky and annoying and overzealous as her town can be, it’s _her_ quirky, annoying, overzealous town. A haven for her father, the place she built her life, the place that brought her Bellamy.

There’s no place else she’d rather be.

**Author's Note:**

> That's all, folks! Thanks for being patient with me on this one. I might add more to this 'verse later on, but then again, I might not. If you enjoyed it, or have strong feelings about the 100 and/or Gilmore Girls, I'd love to hear about it here or on [tumblr](http://katchyalater.tumblr.com)


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